May 13, 2012

One timeless Deadhead saying is, “we are everywhere,” a
phrase that not only makes the un-secret society universal, but also describes
the tantalizing and elusive ways that the Grateful Dead phenomenon has been
diffused into the larger culture.

One striking recent example of this graced
the cover of a recent flower catalog. Horticulturally-inclined fans were
surprised and delighted when the cover of one of their spring garden catalogs
bore the banner headline, “2012 AARS Winner ‘Sunshine Daydream’.” Inside the
Jackson and Perkins catalog, there is no mention of Robert Hunter’s authorship of the phrase; the
somewhat breathless prose only describes the rose, noting that this “stunning
grandiflora is the first rose to win AARS honors from the House of Meilland in
France.” (The online catalog description is here.)

Roses have always been central to the Dead’s iconography, beginning
with Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse’s seminal image for the band’s appearance at
the Avalon Ballroom in 1966, which adapted an illustration by Edward J.
Sullivan for The Rubaiyyat of Omar
Khayyam: a skeleton surrounded by roses.

The pinnacle of that association
was Mouse and Kelley’s timeless classic Blue
Rose, their airbrush masterpiece for the band’s 1978 New Year’s show that
also celebrated the closing of beloved San Francisco landmark Winterland
Auditorium. That image depicted a holy grail for rose breeders, a blue rose;
now the horticultural world has returned the favor, acknowledging the band with
this tribute to Hunter’s lyrics for “Sugar Magnolia.”